Case Number 06506: Small Claims Court

Richie Rich

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All Rise...

One thing's for sure: If Judge Patrick Naugle were the richest kid in the world, he wouldn't be hanging out at Neverland Ranch.

The Charge

An adventure so big even the world's richest kid couldn't afford to miss
it.

The Case

What's the world's richest kid to do when he finds his parents missing /
presumed dead, and his family fortune on the brink of annihilation? Well, pretty
much anything he wants, since he's the world's richest kid (duh!).

I'm talking, of course, about Richie Rich (Macaulay Culkin, Home Alone), who lives in an upscale
multimillion-dollar mansion with his doting parents (Edward Herrmann and
Christine Ebersole) and a gaggle of live-in butlers, maids, business associates,
and scientists. When an unscrupulous family business associate, Lawrence Van
Dough (John Larroquette, Blind Date),
hatches a plan to kill off the Rich family and steal their fortune, it's up to
little Richie Rich to foil his plot before the Rich family becomes dirt
poor!

The career of Macaulay Culkin generally went the way most of us expected.
Culkin burst upon the scene in Uncle
Buck, where little Mac practically stole the movie out from under the late
John Candy. Only two short years later, Mac starred in 1990's Home Alone,
a holiday comedy by director John Hughes (Ferris Bueller's Day Off) that
inexplicably went on to became one of the top-grossing films of all time. Then
Mac made the moderately successful My Girl, then a rehashed sequel to
Home Alone, and from there it all went downhill faster than you could say
"puberty." After a string of bombs and disappointments (Getting
Even With Dad, The Good Son, The
Pagemaster), Mac made his final film before taking a nearly decade-long
hiatus from acting. That film was Richie Rich.

Needless to say, Mac did not go out on a high note.

Richie Rich is based on the Harvey comic book character of the same
name. Just who is Richie Rich? Why, he's the wealthiest kid in the world. His
parents own an enormous home and have billions in assets, plus a gigantic
mountain in the backyard with their faces carved into the side.

Bill Gates, eat your heart out.

Richie Rich has always been one of the least interesting characters in comic
history. He's basically a spoiled but polite child who has everything at his
disposal, including a loyal butler named Cadbury (Jonathan Hyde) and a dog named
Dollar with—you guessed it—dollar signs for spots. Because Richie
Rich is a blasé character, you get no bonus points for guessing that
Richie Rich the movie is mundane and uninspired. Safely falling into the
"it's bad enough to be boring but not bad enough to be horrible"
category, Richie Rich skates along on a plot that leaves little room for
fun or excitement.

As I watched Richie Rich I felt as if I could have written the
screenplay myself, drunk and blindfolded. Let's see…he's a stinkin' rich
kid, so there's gotta be some kind of attempt at having his fortune stolen.
Hmmm…how about someone close to the Rich family? Yeah! Oh, we also need to
have his parents out of the picture, so Richie can be all by himself—maybe
they go down in a plane, but don't get killed because it's a kid's movie, after
all—which leaves Richie behind to figure out how to thwart the bad guy.
And just to make things poignant, let's add in a subplot about how Richie is
monetarily wealthy, but flat broke when it comes to having friends his age. And
a love interest. And wacky gadgets. Cut, print, roll credits.

There isn't much to be said for the performances, since none of them are
very memorable. As Richie, Macaulay Culkin looks to be just on the verge of
becoming an annoying junior high school brat—and did you ever notice that
the older he got, the more he looked like a real-life Muppet? John Larroquette,
so funny in the TV series Night Court, is relegated to being almost too
mean to be the villain in a kids' comedy. Edward Herrmann comes off the best at
Richie's father, always trying to see the silver lining in a dark cloud (I liked
when he and his wife were stuck on a life raft with nothing but fine foods to
survive on). Other than that, I dare you to watch this film and the next day
recall anyone else who was onscreen.

Richie Rich is forgettable fodder that might entertain kids, and will
surely bore their parents. I guess the billion-dollar question is: Why would you
feel the need to sit through this drivel when there are so many other, better,
funnier kids' movies to chose from?

Richie Rich is presented in 1.85:1 anamorphic widescreen. Warner
Bros. has done a decent job of making this transfer look clean and clear, though
it's certainly not a million-dollar image. The disc provides bright, crisp
colors and black levels, without any major distortion in the picture. Digital
artifacting and other imperfections are generally absent. Basically, this
transfer does the job that's needed, and little else.

The soundtrack is presented in Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround in English. While
you're getting a 5.1 mix, I can't say it's the most exciting track on the
planet. There are a few surround sounds to be heard here, though they're few and
far between—this is a mostly front-heavy sound mix. All aspects of the mix
are free of any hiss or distortion. Also included on this disc is a Dolby 2.0
Surround track in French, as well as English, French and Spanish subtitles.

The extra features on this disc are worth about a nickel—all you get
is a theatrical trailer for the film.